I had this whole thing written out about how I discovered the source of all my (and my teams’) recent bad luck, but it was really boring. Who cares? Long story short, I’ve been wearing these wrist bands for all of last season with the Rebels, the two games we’ve played this season, and the past three games with the American Eagles. Save yesterday’s Eagles game, where I lost the writstbands halfway through, we’ve lost all of those games. My performance has been a lot less than stellar in those weeks as well, but once I lost the wristbands, things got exponentially better. Our team pulled ahead and we won the game. The wristbands, I’ve decided, were the cancer. I’m contemplating burning them. What do you think?

Other than that epiphany, last night was great. Blondie came out and watched my hockey game. We won, and I made two horrible plays and four really huge plays, so in the end, I’m +2. The big plays, by the way, came after I took those fucking sweatbands off. After the game, I met up with Loc, Beaker and Cannons at the bowling alley. We used to bowl all the time back in the day and we’re trying to get back into it.

Now back in the day we used to all have bowling nicknames. They were completely retarded and reflective of the frame of mind we were in at the time. Beaker was PornoBeakeric, Loc was Loc (from Don’t Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood) and I was The Jesus (from the Big Lebowski). The names are fun, and we never thought twice about using them when we could put them into the computer ourselves. It was an inside joke, and nobody else had to be embarrassed by our stupidity.

Flash forward to last night. I get to the bowling alley in Novi as Loc, PornoBeakeric and Cannons are finishing up their first game. As I’m paying the lady for my shoes she asks “You’re going to add on to their lane?” I nod my head and she says “What’s your name? I have to put it in the computer.” So now, I’m thinking. “I’m 26 years old. I’m still wearing my dress shirt and khakis from work, and I have to tell this woman that my name is ‘The Jesus’?”

I kind of sat there and stared at her for a few seconds. Looking back on it, it was probably a few seconds too long, because she seemed kind of weirded out when my eyes glazed over and I got that far-off look on my face as I contemplated saving myself the embarrassment and just telling her that my name is Joe.

That’s when I looked down at the lanes, to my friends, acting just the same way we did back in college, and I decided to throw caution to the wind. I leaned over the counter and said in a hushed tone “The Jesus. It’s a long-running joke.” Without blinking an eye, she punched it into the computer, looked me and said “That’s my favorite character in the Big Lebowski. Now don’t go hitting on any 8-year-olds.” Then she just smiled and walked away. What a night.